


flower petals, blood stains, and everything in between

by dowseded



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Hope's Peak Academy (Dangan Ronpa), Background Original Character(s)- DICE and Shuichi Saihara's relatives, Blood and Gore, Depression, Eventual Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi, Fluff and Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn, kokichi befriends everyone, lots of late night talks, shuichi is really stressed out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2020-08-19 21:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20216545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dowseded/pseuds/dowseded
Summary: Kokichi is dying.As each day passes, his hanahaki disease grows worse, and nobody knows. He's totally fine with it, though- even if someday he shows up dead, he'd rather bring the fact that he has no idea who he's in love with to his grave than risk anybody finding out.Of course, not everything goes his way, and things only get worse as time goes on.





	1. all or nothing at all

**Author's Note:**

> hi! hello! welcome. salutations.  
to those who are new to this work or my stuff, thanks for stopping by! i know hanahaki fanfictions are pretty common but this is just something i thought i'd try out and experiment with, so whatever happens, please enjoy!! i put so much effort into this woo gosh  
also, if there's anything you are sensitive to, pay attention to the tags and the notes before each chapter! i don't want anything i create to impact someone negatively so stay safe out there bros!!  
otherwise, enjoy!!! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi avoids some questions and makes an unexpected accomplice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs in this chapter- a bit of blood, description of another person's wounds but it's mostly just bruises  
stay safe!

It was still. 

Aside from the gentle dripping of the recently run faucet, all Kokichi could hear was his heart pounding loudly in his ears. The steady beating alongside his searing headache and the burning in his throat had him feeling painfully feverish, but this was less of a fever sort of thing and more of an actual illness that included coughing up flower petals and sometimes even tablespoons of blood at a time.

After having dealt with his newfound illness for over a month, blood had become something of a normal sight to the supreme leader. Flowers had just become a reminder. The occasional wary look from somebody in the bathroom the more times his coughing fits hit in school made him want to skip class for the rest of the day. The awkward atmospheres at DICE meetings got increasingly tenser the longer Kokichi avoided the topic of his disease. And for fuck's sake, Kokichi memorized toilet seats and the contents in trash cans better than his mother's face.

He had never felt so helpless. 

Feeling helpless was a foreign thing to him. It wasn't that everything Kokichi did was _always_ planned out, but it was rare that something unpredictable happened and got pushed to a point where he lost his grasp of control. Now, he kept finding himself in these situations where he felt so exhaustively useless that sometimes he just had the urge to wait until it all went away. Unfortunately, if he did that, he would die way quicker than he wanted to.

To make matters worse, he had little to no leads on how he could fix his problem. From what he had researched, he had an unusual type of disease driven by romantic intent known as Hanahaki. It meant that he had fallen into unrequited love. There were other shitty additions to it as well, like the fact that it's practically incurable without surgery and gradually gets worse over the three months that it lasts. It didn’t hit him quite as hard as you’d expect unrequited love or a more commonly incurable and quickly killing disease to, though. There was one small factor that was what kept Kokichi hopeful. 

If the afflicted person confesses how they feel and the sentiment is mutual, then the root will wither, eventually dying and disappearing without a trace.

Keeping that in mind, he believed that he could get through it by himself. Getting the person he was in love with to fall back should've been easy enough, surely. But after 3 hours of pacing in his room and thriving off of sugar alone, Kokichi realized something that completely altered his situation while lying on the floor mid-sugar crash.

He had no idea who he was in love with. 

Kokichi wasn’t sure if it was common sense to know or if he just hadn't thought enough about it, but he was incredibly frustrated nonetheless. If reading all sorts of cheesy romance novels and watching a ton of angsty teen dramas didn't teach him anything (in fact, he just became more bothered with the fact that he was experiencing something so gross) and trying not to think about it didn't get him anywhere, then what the hell was he supposed to do? Kokichi didn't even know his sexuality. Sure, he'd never thought about it strenuously, but he was pretty sure that teenagers typically knew by sixteen. Thinking about it made him want to scream.

Threading his fingers through his hair, he barely resisted the urge to rip it all out. DICE was still an active and running organization, but the chance that Kokichi would die choking on flower petals before he could really flex his talent as an ultimate supreme leader became more likely the longer nothing happened. Of course, there existed methods of disposing of the root by surgery, but the safest options were ridiculously expensive and the cheapest sold illegally in sketchy places. Don't get him wrong, having surgery done by a retired meth-head somewhere in the slums sounded fun and all, but he didn't want to take the easy way out. That was for chumps.

And even if it meant hours of retracing his steps in his room, nonsensical scribbles on his whiteboard and the deaths of many expo markers, Kokichi knew he had to stay determined. He couldn't die yet.

He had DICE, after all, and DICE was all everyone had. So, for _them_, he had to get better.

Bringing his head up from his hands, Kokichi looked into the mirror and couldn’t help slightly grimacing at his sad state. Noticeable dark semicircles were below his violet eyes, and he couldn’t deny that he looked- and felt- extremely tired. He knew that his condition had been gradually getting worse over the past couple of weeks, but he didn’t remember looking so bad the day before. He seriously needed a nap.

After half-heartedly cleaning the mess on his counter and washing his face, Kokichi stumbled out of the bathroom and face-planted on his bed, immediately relaxing into the ridiculously soft mattress. But even as he dozed off, a stubborn reminder stuck in his brain.

He had to find out who he was in love with, no matter what.

\+ + +

"Ouma-kun! Open the freaking door!"

Kokichi startled awake, tumbling onto the floor when he found that he was hanging off of the bed. Tangled inside of a sweet-smelling comforter and thin bedsheets, he blinked in confusion while the distinctly fuzzy shapes in his room materialized into objects, his brain feeling as if it was full of cotton. Unfortunately, the thing that awoke him started to persist, and after listening for a second longer he recognized it as a voice, accompanied by an overzealous knocking on his front door.

"Geez, I swear to god- I know you're in there, dummy! I just heard something fall over! Open the door!" 

With sunlight blazing directly into his room, his eyes watered as he glanced at his clock, and he only grew increasingly confused when he saw that it was 3:34 PM. That meant that he had missed school and slept for almost 21 hours straight, but that became the least of his worries when the girl at his door started to get even more infuriated.

"I came all the way here to check on you because I was worried and you're giving me the _silent treatment_? This isn't a game, I'm serious-"

"_Shut up!_ I'm _coming_, I was just asleep," Kokichi shouted haphazardly, growing annoyed by her shrill voice. Quickly jumping up and changing out his slightly bloody shirt, he simultaneously sprayed air-freshener to mask the overpowering scent of blood, throwing it somewhere behind him once the smell started to get far too strong. 

Eventually reaching the entrance, he tried to open the door but only saw out of a crack of it when he forgot to undo one of the latches. He also got a glimpse of whoever was there- his classmate Kaede Akamatsu, sporting an irritated glower that turned to him when the door budged- and he couldn't help the laugh that escaped from him, despite the voice in the back of his head asking how in the world she knew where he lived. "Uh oh. Not _another_ hitman at my door! I think I should keep this latch on- who knows what you'll do to me when I open this door," He cried hysterically, "I'm calling the police." 

"Just open it," she sighed, rubbing a hand against her face in frustration. Happy to oblige (not without an overexaggerated wail, though, much to Kaede's annoyance), he undid the latch and pushed the door open with his foot. Funnily enough, his visitor slightly grimaced from the intense sea salt smell drifting from his room, previously looking as if she wanted to say something, but was so put off from the strong smell that she momentarily forgot. It took Kokichi the most extreme efforts to resist the urge to laugh again, settling for an upset frown instead.

“Aw, do I look that bad, Akamatsu-chan? I can't help having an STD, you know.”

“Huh? Wait, what-”

Weirdly enough, Kokichi was delighted upon seeing Kaede. He'd only skipped one day of school, but he supposed that it was because she was entertaining to be around, had a way with getting people to shut up, and wasn't so much as a stickler for the rules like others. Although she could be infuriatingly oblivious at times and tended to lash out easily, she'd be boring if she was perfect. He'd even go as far as to call her a friend- but only because of that one time she bought him a soda after Mondo punched him in the face. Not for any other reason, of course. 

(Okay, he was lying. Lay off.)

"Hey, are you even listening? You don't even have an STD, do you? Ugh," She decided to drop it with a dismissive shake of her head.

“Ouma-kun… you're actually sick- like, with something serious- aren't you?” The pianist asked in a patronizing tone. She seemed to have gotten more concerned once she got a good look at his face. 

“Well, to be honest, I don’t know." He whimpered, once again pulling the waterworks. The life already seemed to be seeping out of Kaede's face. "The other day, while I was having a knife fight with some kids in the slums, one of their dogs bit my arm and I think it gave me some awful disease.” It took a lot of effort to fight back the fake tears in his eyes with how dedicated he was in his role. Her eyebrows furrowed in response, and she looked as if she wanted to say something about that, but she didn't feed into it. 

“No, seriously. Hear me out. I know I could be fretting over nothing since you skip school sometimes anyway, but everyone's noticed that you've been coughing a lot, eating less, and your frequent trips to the bathroom are growing by the week. Not to mention, you always come back looking pale, and once Harumaki-san even noticed a spot of blood on your shirt. You look like you’ve been stuck in bed all day, too.” She disclosed, staring sadly at the floor with a hand grasping her other arm. "I'm worried about you, really."

He hated that he felt so bad.

Regardless, a carefree mask slipped onto Kokichi's face as he shoved his hands into his sweatpants pockets. “I can't believe you came all the way here just to ask me about that!” He tittered, almost wincing at how scratchy his throat sounded. Kaede seemed to as well. "It was all a lie, silly! I don't leave in the middle of class to pee or anything, my life is _far_ busier than that. If you want me to be honest, I'd inform you of my secret life as a vampire, but I might have to kill you afterward." He said, whispering the last part with a mischievous glint in his eyes and a finger to his mouth.

But his heart stopped when Kaede looked back up at him, her eyes watering. She shook her head and rubbed a hand against her temples, lips pursed in frustration.

"I don't know why you're hiding it, but you can talk to me about anything, Ouma-kun. Really." She was shaking.

Shit.

Then, as he struggled to respond, something suddenly rubbed against his ankle. He looked down to see his cat Conan glancing up at her, a bluish-gray tail curling and twisting around in curiosity. 

“Huh? You have a _kitty_?” She exclaimed and crouched down to pet him, the previous matter entirely forgotten as a wide smile spread onto her face. For a second, he wasn't sure what even happened just then, but he saw Kaede wiping her face as she scratched his cat behind the ears. When he crouched down to see her face better, he noticed that her eyes were sort of puffy.

"Akamatsu-chan, I'm fine. It's nothing major." The lie burned off of his tongue as he reached over to lightly touch her hand, and when she glanced back up at him with tears streaming down her face, he realized that he'd never seen her cry before.

"Okay," She smiled again, and this time he could see how forced it was. "Sorry, um... I'm not trying to get pity points with this, but just know that everyone's worried, okay?"

He wished that he knew how to console her better, but he could tell that she was kind of embarrassed for crying, so he decided to drop it.

At some point, the awkward silence melted into casual conversation, and she told him about what he missed in school, also explaining that Rantaro had told her how to find him. Then she started talking about how she had made soup with Kirumi in Home Economics, and he immediately perked up. "Soup?"

"Yeah! Actually, I saved some of it, so do you want me to bring you some tomorrow afternoon? If you leave the door unlocked, I can put it on the kitchen table or something if it’s hard to get out of bed.” She brought up, a genuine grin gracing her pretty features. He didn't see her as anything more than a friend, but the sweet gesture had his heart feeling light. She did too much for him.

“Don't tell me you'll bring a spoon, too," Kokichi replied hopefully, to which Kaede laughed and affirmed. His heart panged again with guilt for keeping everything from her, but it couldn't be helped. Kokichi hated depending on other people.

Eventually Kaede left with a promise for some soup and a revisit to Conan, waving with a gleeful expression as she walked away. 

Kokichi nearly missed the stressed sigh of desperation Kaede exhaled when she’d gotten a few steps away.

* ゜ * 

Taking a deep breath of fresh air, a nearby orchestra of crickets was the only company Kokichi had out in the empty countryside. It had been a few hours since Kaede last visited him, but it felt like it was ages ago from how much he'd done since then. Between doing some stuff with DICE, (avoiding their concerned questions,) cleaning up his room and his current excursion, he was undeniably exhausted, but the relaxing atmosphere of the area he was in felt nice. Kokichi’s trips here to burn the bags full of flower petals he collected over the school week certainly made up for how much energy Japan train stations took to navigate. 

With his phone reading 5:04 AM, the breezy weather and strikingly green grass below him after the thunderstorm from earlier were a death trap when he could barely keep his eyes open. He was sure that he’d eventually fall asleep if he didn’t start moving soon, so, stretching his arms far above his head, a breathy yawn escaped from Kokichi’s mouth as he stared up at the stars, the last embers of the smoke from the fire beside him melting into the cloudless sky in an almost hypnotizing way. The dull smell of burning flowers only felt like something minor compared to how bright the stars were. He wished that his subordinates could see how peaceful it looked, but it wasn't something you could catch on camera, even though the expensive phone his school provided for him was so high tech.

Humming a random tune to himself, Kokichi nearly jumped when he suddenly got a text. Sluggishly opening it up, the supreme leader struggled to keep his eyes open as he read what was sent. 

**[Today, 5:05 AM]**

>KS98: Ouma-kun, this may be a useless thing to ask when you will most likely lie, but are you taking care of yourself correctly?

Oh, it was Korekiyo. Why was he contacting him so early in the morning? Well, considering who it was, he probably somehow knew that he was awake. How scary.

>kinghorse: of course i am! what, did somebody tell you about my habit of bathing in virgin blood?  
>kinghorse: trust me, it’s good for your skin

>KS98: Oh, is that true? I’ve always been curious as to why Yonaga-san does it, but whenever I ask, she brushes it off.  
>KS98: Well, no matter, that can wait for later.

...

>KS98: You are sick with some sort of coughing illness, correct? I know you do not like when people pry into your business, but it is not only I who is curious. 

>kinghorse: what!! slander! that is blasphemy  
>kinghorse: ever since i started drinking seltzer water and hydrating my skin i’ve been immune to sickness

>KS98: ...I see. Well, whatever may happen, if you do happen to contract something or find that you already have, feel free to tell me as I am well informed in strange sicknesses… and also quite interested.

Kokichi frowned.

>kinghorse: ‘strange sicknesses’? it sounds like you already have some theories on an illness i don't have

>KS98: We shall wait and find out, then.

>kinghorse: how mysterious! can't wait until everyone finds out that i've caught aquagenic urticaria nishishi  
>kinghorse: wait oops pretend you didn't see that

>KS98: Aquagenic urticaria? You are lying, that of which I can tell, but if it was true it would explain why I have never seen you drink water.

>kinghorse: what!! but i love water and it's completely flavorless and awful taste... i'd drink it every day if i could!

>KS98: This may come as a shock to you, but you can.

>kinghorse: no..... no way..

>KS98: Aside from that, I have a skin routine to get to, so I'll see you in class Monday. As much as it may irk you, try and get some sleep.

>kinghorse: ok! have fun spreading radioactive waste on your face 

>KS98: From my knowledge, face wash isn't radioactive, Ouma-kun.

>kinghorse: that's what the government wants u to think kork 

Not caring to wait for a response, Kokichi shoved his phone back into his pocket as he got up and stomped out the remains of the fire, then walking back to the train station in no hurry. Not thinking of much in particular, his mind floated to how much Korekiyo had changed in his time of knowing him. 

At first, it was hard for anyone to tolerate both himself and Korekiyo. With Kokichi's annoying antics and Korekiyo's sinister babbling, Rantaro, for whatever insane reason, reached out, and- as much as Kokichi hated to admit it- they'd both become more tolerable over time, from what Rantaro told them. He once said that introducing them to shitty American sitcoms was what had changed them, but with Rantaro, it was difficult to tell if he was joking or being serious.

Korekiyo was still nosy as ever, though- that hadn't changed. He was probably going to continue pestering Kokichi about his coughing issue and wouldn't stop until he opened up to him, but that's the thing- nobody was going to find out, and he was determined to keep it that way until he got rid of his Hanahaki himself, no matter the cost. (He felt bad for making everyone worry, but it was his problem and would remain his problem until he fixed it.)

Finally arriving at the train station, his feet made wet smacking sounds and left dirty footprints against the concrete, mysteriously untied shoelaces dragging behind him in tow. Leaning against one of the posts, a soft sigh escaped his mouth as his senses started to dull, his previous indolence starting to wear rapidly. The train would be here shortly if it came on time, but he still had another train ride to take after this one and a 30-minute walk back to his apartment. He was pretty resilient when it came to making sure he was a safe distance from civilization, but doing this every Friday night/Saturday morning was starting to get tiring.

Shaking the intruding thoughts from his head, Kokichi kept his mind empty and sat down in a seat one his train arrived, his hand migrating back to his pocket once it started to move. He supposed he could mess around on his phone since he had nothing else to do. 

Responding to Rantaro, Gonta, and Kiibo's worried texts from earlier, he soon after found that Kaede and Shuichi wanted to bother him too. Kaede wasn't much of a surprise, considering that she even wanted to bring him soup, but Shuichi? They rarely talked. Why did he bother?

Kokichi didn't know much about him, either- he was generally uninteresting, didn't have much of a reaction to his lies unlike Kaito, and wasn't fun to annoy like Kiibo, but that hat he always wore only served to get more obnoxious the longer it stayed, that was for sure. Sometimes he was tempted to knock it off of his head, but Kaede would likely smack him sideways if he tried, seeing that she had protective tendencies and Shuichi stuck to her like a stubborn piece of velcro. In short, he was boring, but he checked to see what he'd sent him anyway.

Feeling another yawn crawl up his throat, Kokichi opened the message, only to find that he had deleted it. He started typing before he thought about what he was saying.

**[Today, 5:23 AM]**

>kinghorse: hey!!!!!!!!! wtf you can’t do that to me  
>kinghorse: what did you say what did you say!!!!!

The moment the messages sent, Kokichi’s eyebrows raised in surprise when he heard a notification from a phone on the floor across from him. Beeping immediately after his text was sent, the case was also adorned with a picture of a bird that he could've sworn he'd seen before, specifically in a time when it had been clumsily dropped on the bathroom floor in a rush to get back to class- by one of his classmates, in fact.

As Kokichi stared at the scene, the most notable thing after looking for a few seconds was Shuichi Saihara himself slung across the train seat, seeming to be dead asleep and in the same attire as always- except bloody and beat up to a point nearly beyond recognition.

The scene was almost eerie. Without any other person in the same train as them, seeing that they were out early in the country, it was deadly silent, sans the rhythmic beat of the train moving against the tracks. He wasn’t sure how he missed his classmate asleep on the seat when he walked in, but he could infer that it was because Shuichi looked like an entirely different person in this state.

Kokichi barely registered that he was walking over to him until he saw Shuichi up close. His hat was covering a portion of his face, but a more critical look showed that Shuichi had various bruises scattered across his skin, multiple broken cuts on his lips, matted hair from god knows what, and a dried bloody nose that was possibly even broken. Even while he was asleep, he looked exhausted, if not desperate for comfort with his fingers held firmly onto the brim of his hat despite being unconscious. Evidently, he had gotten into a nasty fight- even weirder, considering that Shuichi seemed like a pacifist or too much of a coward to hurt another person- but with his interest getting the best of him, Kokichi extended a finger and poked Shuichi's cheek in an attempt to wake him up, hoping that he wasn't a deep sleeper.

Shuichi had hardly stirred, slightly twitching in acknowledgment, but ignorant otherwise. Kokichi huffed and decided to take a different approach, snickering mischievously as he moved dangerously close to his face.

“HEY! Sai-ha-ra-chan!”

The detective woke up with a startled shout, instinctively moving away as his eyes adjusted to the fluorescent train lights. He sat up and rubbed a hand against his forehead with a confused look on his face as if he didn’t know where he was, but from the way he slowly fell into a slumped position and let out a tired sigh, it must've gotten back to him pretty quickly. He seemed to think that he was by himself with a bitter melancholy surrounding him until he noticed that he was not alone. Pulling the brim of his hat further down in the process, he turned to Kokichi, his shoulders stiff. “_Wait, Ouma-kun?_ Hold on, what are you doing here?”

“Morning, sleepyhead! I just got back from placing mousetraps all over Momota-chan's bedroom floor. What about you?” Kokichi greeted, turning his attention to Shuichi’s phone when he remembered that it was there. Curious, he picked it up and immediately noticed large jagged cracks in the interface that completely distorted the screen, but most notably his phone was at 16% and had large black splotches that obscured parts of the standard background. Kokichi thought Shuichi was the type to be overly responsible with something like a phone, but maybe he wasn't the cause of this?

“Oh... um, good morning," Shuichi mumbled in response, turning to face him all the while entirely avoiding eye contact, the hand holding on to his hat stubbornly falling to his side in tow. Starting to throw his phone between his hands, Kokichi put on a cheery facade, pushing down the tiredness to interrogate the detective.

"So... what happened? Who beat you up? Did you tell Harumaki-chan that her shirt was on backward or something?" He chided, his wide smile slightly strained. Shuichi didn't look surprised that he asked.

"Ah, no, it's not that... I just got off of a tiring shift and tripped down the stairs by accident as a result of being lethargic. Luckily, nothing too fatal happened, so I didn't need to go to the clinic or anything." He told him, but judging by the way that those bruises couldn't possibly have been inflicted by stairs and the way that he was acting- like staring off to the side, slightly fidgeting despite how hard he tried to stay still, and the different kind of uncomfortable unlike to the one he always was- he didn't like to lie, and what came out of his mouth couldn't have been anything else but dishonesty. It was alarmingly believable, though- if it were told to someone who didn't get to see the damage that had been inflicted on him up close, they might've been unable to see through it. He might've been used to lying.

"_You're working nights?_ Money must be tight, huh?" Kokichi asked, slightly tilting his head to the side, once again leering at the broken phone. It now rested between the index and thumb fingers of his right hand, tantalizingly swinging side to side as Kokichi moved his wrist. Shuichi (, not seeming to care that he was messing with his phone,) slightly flinched at his question but didn't answer, still staring at something off in the distance. 

But... Kokichi decided not to pry any further.

"Oh, um, aren't you sick, Ouma-kun?" Shuichi asked, completely diverting the topic. "I mean, as long as you're taking medicine, I suppose going out for a bit shouldn't matter so much, but..." He trailed off, his awkwardness as evident as ever.

“Nah, being sick won't stop me! Having a little cold won't stop me from being the ultimate supreme leader, nishishi.” He snickered, finding his arms slipping into a relaxed position behind his head, the phone now situated in his palm.

"Ah... I guess. You should rest as often as you can, though." Shuichi advised, suddenly meeting his eyes. Kokichi's floated to the large purplish bruise on his cheek, and he started to wonder if he had any others that were more hidden. 

"Well, I'd be breaking my organization's laws if I went and took care of myself. There's a death penalty for that, since it's evil, and all." He sighed, staring scrutinizingly at his nails. Shuichi only furrowed his eyebrows, seeming confused, if not overly curious as well. 

"A death penalty? Isn't that a bit much for something so minor? And- wait, aren't you the leader? Are you saying you'd _execute yourself?_" He asked with a concerned glance, yet there was a hint of a smile there, too, as if he could tell that it was a stupid lie.

"Well, each member- including myself- signed a contract upon joining that agreed to all of the rules. There's an extra rule at the bottom that states that if I die, they're allowed to use all of the nukes we stole to blow up the world. Cool, right?" He grinned, the action coming more genuinely from such a ridiculous lie. Shuichi slightly paled for a second, as if he thought he was telling the truth, then it relaxed into bewilderment, yet that smile still remained. 

"... There's no way that's true." Shuichi sighed, shaking his head. 

Furthermore going into fake detail about his organization of ten thousand members, despite there only being nine, they ended up talking for the majority of the train ride. It wasn’t until the train came to a stop and a chirpy voice announcing the destination over the intercom did he notice the sun peeking over the horizon and the other people crowding around.

Standing up, Kokichi lightly brushed off his pants and turned to Shuichi, still feeling relatively tired but more awake than before. “Welp, it’s time for me to take my leave. Wherever you’re going, don’t get too lonely without me!” He told him, heading to the door with a slight skip in his step. That wasn't intentional, but whatever.

“Ah… okay. Bye, then.” Shuichi waved, slowly letting his hand fall once Kokichi was out the door and more people had started to file in. Despite the growing noise around him, hearing the detective’s quiet dejected tone got something in Kokichi’s heart to lightly tug and he immediately turned back around, pushing his way to him without realizing what he was doing. Previously looking down, Shuichi's head shot back up in surprise, and Kokichi got a closer glimpse of one of his visible eyes, a calming hue of grey that looked bronze in the warm lights of the train. Fortunately, the supreme leader found an excuse for his sudden return, but almost stuttered it out from how distracted he got by his admittedly stunning eye color.

“Hey, sorry, I forgot I still had this! It’s nearly broken, but we can still text while we’re apart if you want.” Having almost carried Shuichi's phone out without noticing, he shoved it back into his hands, then hurriedly turned tail and ran away as quickly as he could. He completely missed his reaction, but getting to his next train as fast as possible was the only thing on his mind.

Somehow finding himself in his designated train just on time even though he wasn’t paying attention, Kokichi sat down with a huff, winded. He hadn't run that far, but his heart was pounding, mind racing with questions. Unfortunately, he didn't get much time to think about it, suddenly receiving a text. 

**[Today, 6:54 AM]**

>SSaihara907: hey, thanks for giving me back my phone. I didn't even notice that you had carried it out.

Abruptly, his stunning eyes appeared in Kokichi's mind, and he forgot how to breathe.

They vaguely reminded him of a clockwork, for some reason.

Shaking the fogginess from his head, Kokichi willed his thumbs to move, despite how numb he felt.

>kinghorse: aww, of course! anyfing fow my bewobed saihawa-chan.

Shuichi seemed to hesitate for a moment, the text bubble wavering.

>SSaihara907: ...your what?

With a chuckle, he continued to text Shuichi until his phone died, an annoyed grumble escaping him when his screen suddenly went black. Sleeping on the rest of the ride to Tokyo, he then took the long walk back to his place, stifling many yawns on his way back. Dragging his feet up the apartment stairs, he didn't bother to lock his front door behind him and instead fell into his bed, not even taking his muddy shoes off. There were still a million thoughts racing through his head, about DICE, his disease- Shuichi and his stupid eyes- but all that did was make it easier for him to fall asleep.

It didn't take very long until he passed out.

↱ ↴ ↲ 

Kokichi didn't know what happened. One second, he was asleep, then the next he was awake and coughing drops of blood all over himself. 

To think that it had been a day since his last fit in his bathroom. 

There wasn't much he could do when he woke up coughing. It happened often, but it was a significant pain in the ass when he had to wash the blood out of his bedsheets, so he often tried to run to the bathroom before it got any worse. It didn't ever work, since he usually just fell on the floor, like just now with a deafening thud, but this time it wasn't only Kokichi there. Sure, sometimes Conan walked over to sit and wait it out with him, but today there was a person- a _classmate_\- who just happened to be there right when Kokichi started to have a fit. 

All at once, Kokichi remembered Kaede telling him she would bring the soup in for him if needed, himself forgetting to lock the front door in a daze, and the unforgettable poker-faced look on Ryoma Hoshi's face that was recognizable when seeing that the aforementioned person was standing a few feet away, looking over with Conan watching slyly in his arms.

Kokichi felt his plans withering away when Ryoma disappeared and came back with a glass of water, dead eyes looking between the phone in his hand that had 119 on speed dial and the mess of petals and blood on the floor. Pushing the glass into his hand, he asked, "Ouma... is this what you've been hiding?" 

With words dying in his throat, all Kokichi could scrape from the shambles of his dignity was a small chuckle and a boastful look, smiling in Ryoma's face as if he wasn't collapsing right before him. Right on cue, he started to choke again, gasping and coughing all over himself.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Ryoma took the candy cigarette out of his mouth and stared him dead in the face from his crouched position next to him, a prying and annoyed tone rumbling from his throat, "You know, I could just call an ambulance and walk out of here. I know you won't like that, so explain."

Ohhhhh, _shit_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woah!! wowie i cannot believe this chapter is a whopping 5,000+ words long where did the days go  
but hey, thanks for sticking around! i'm sorry that the beginning is pretty slow- this is the first of my works that i'm ever publicly posting and i'm completely new to this stuff, but just the fact that you're reading it means a lot to me so thanks for giving it a try（=´∇｀=）  
on another note, i'm honestly not very sure when the next chapter will be out, but it's already in the works, so please be patient in the meantime!  
leave any comments if you'd like, i'd love to hear what you think ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ


	2. burning bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll talk about my long hiatus in the end notes・_・;  
also, some mildly scary things happen in this chapter, so please bear with me... tears will b shed  
TWs: death threats, lots of blood (again), dissociation, icky wounds (with not much description), panic attacks

”It's about time that we address the elephant in the room. I was going to mention it if you woke up anyway, but this gives me a better excuse.”

With a cough, Kokichi lifted his head from the floor to look at Ryoma, fighting back every hyperventilating thought in his head from escaping his lips.

_Holy shit. This is the worst._

”Before anything happens, just know that I'm trying to help you. That's all.”

He wanted to say something back, tell him that he wasn't going to accept his help anyway, but his throat said otherwise. Kokichi was pretty sure that if he opened his mouth, the blood that continuously flowed from his throat would pour onto his sheets.

”I know you don't like opening up. I've seen how you snap when people try to pry into your business. I don't care, though, cause even liars like you don't deserve to die young, and _this time_ I'm not going to let it slide. Let's touch base for a bit. I'll see if I can get anything out of you.” He proposed, moving to sit on the floor. Kokichi quirked an eyebrow, having trouble catching up with what he was saying. What did he mean by 'this time'?

"What the hell are you t- _tch_-" Cut short by a hack, he lurched forward, finding that what he assumed previously was correct. Smacking a hand over his mouth, he wished that he could listen to his brain for once, since blood came pouring out of his mouth, seeping into his bedsheets and staining them beyond any point of saving. Even as he coughed through the thick liquid spilling from his fingers, Ryoma stared blankly at him.

"You're pretty far." Kokichi wondered if he ever had anything positive to say.

"Ask the question already." He spat, glaring at him from where he laid hunched on the floor. His throat felt like it was almost literally on fire.

Ryoma shrugged, toying with the candy cigarette in his hand. "Sorry. How about you start by telling me if anyone knows what's really going on with you? Am I the first to know about this?” 

With blood rolling thick down his chin, he struggled to think of an answer, almost entirely distracted by the large pool of blood below him that was most certainly his. With the insistent tick-tick-ticking of Kokichi's hardly functioning ceiling fan, all in the room was silent, the tension so thick that you'd need a hacksaw to cut through it. Ryoma seemed unphased by it- Kokichi supposed he’d probably seen worse things in prison, but his unnerving frown felt far more deranged than something on the face of a convict. The unimpressed look proved so, but Kokichi had more pressing issues than Ryoma's blatant apathy. 

Duly thinking back to when Miu picked at him for it with a grimace (_"Over-analyze these tits instead, nerd!" She chortled before getting a wrench thrown in her direction,_), he over-analyzed the multiple ways this could go. How could he get Ryoma away as quickly as possible, but also prevent himself from passing out due to blood loss? If he bled any more, he'd probably faint or something.

It didn't take much time to think about before he found a solution, and it was simple, as much as he hated it.

So as his fever started to worsen, he took a sip of the water that Ryoma got for him, cringing when it slid flavorlessly across his tongue and down his raw throat. It didn't help the pain, but he could at least speak more fluently.

"Yeah. Does that matter?” Another dribble of blood dripped onto his shirt when he opened his mouth, and he felt that it was inevitable having to spend a few hours washing the blood out what hadn't been permanently stained.

"It does. I was leading up to it, but I was meaning to say that if you have some sensible reason for not going to the emergency room, I can help you find another solution to this." He explained, taking a bite from the candy in his hand. Kokichi moved to sit up with a few wheezy coughs and a grimace, keeping his other hand in front of his mouth in case anything slipped out. He was confused as to where Ryoma got the experience for this, but that was an issue for later.

"I don't want or need help." He told him simply, his voice sounding alien in his head. "I adore that a killer such as yourself cares about me so much, but I'm afraid that I can't return your affection. I'm in love with Harukawa-chan." Ryoma froze, and Kokichi barely resisted laughing at him. He let the uncomfortable silence sit until he inevitably burst into laughter.

"Oh my god, that was such a bad lie! I'm sorry, nishishi," His sardonic giggling was met with an irritated glare.

"_Listen to me_. I don't know if this comes from something suicidal, or just heavy self-reliance, but it’s your classmates- no, your _friends_ that are worried. People care about you. Isn’t that enough to try and help yourself out of this?” Maybe he felt a little bad for that, but he wouldn't budge.

"They’re worried over a little blood? Aw, c’mon, it’s not that serious.” He snickered once again, his laugh suddenly garbled by a simultaneous grunt of pain. Ryoma ignored him.

"Try looking at this in a way that isn't only considering yourself. I don't know how _all_ of your friends feel, but Amami told me he doesn't know how to talk to you about all of this after seven months of knowing you." He bunched up his bedsheets in his fist and held on so hard that his hand shook, lips pressing into a thin line. Why was he bringing Rantaro into this? "You’ve hidden your emotions from everyone, so nobody has any idea how to help you with stuff like this. They kept saying, ’give it time, he’ll break eventually, ’ and meanwhile, you're coughing up blood in your sleep. I guess it was a good idea to try forcing it out of you since I doubt that anything could get you to open up. I couldn't have imagined that it got this bad, though."

Kokichi pursed his lips, trying to fight down his nausea after hearing that.

”Keeping all of your problems to yourself like this won’t help. Living like this is only hurting you. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through to have these trust issues, but you have people that care about you-”

-And Ryoma was in no position to assume things when he hardly knew him.

"Aren't you looking a little too deeply into it, Hoshi-chan? I deal with my problems on my own, and that's it. There's nothing beyond that. I don't care if you came here on a mission- you can't just break in and piece me apart when we've hardly ever talked before. It would help to get to know somebody better before planning an intervention, you know." His expression grew blank, and he didn't mean to be so honest, but it was too late. The convict still continued to insist.

“I don't think you realize how much your death would affect the people around you. I didn't notice it until recently, but you've gained quite a reputation with everyone- a good one. It sounded weird to me at first, but even Taka and Tsumiki defended you, and you're always causing trouble for them." Kokichi vaguely remembered that he swore not to get attached to anyone at Hope's Peak when he accepted the invitation, and he sort of wished that he never broke down his facade. "Nobody would judge you if you talked about your feelings. Everyone gets pushed to their wits' end sometimes." He also wished that Ryoma would stop assuming things. "If you stay like this, just keeping all of your thoughts and worries kept weighing on your shoulders, you’ll die, Ouma. You can't do this alone." Most of all, he wanted Ryoma to stop talking. "I'm not going to make you open up right away. All I ask is that you let me help you from here on out-"

"_Okay, fine! Shut up already!_ I'll let you help if you want." Kokichi interrupted with a dramatic groan, and Ryoma's expression morphed to shock, an uncomfortably foreign look on him. He knew why he was surprised, because it seemed like it was almost too easy, and he was right. 

"Why don't you start by forgetting that this ever happened and then leave me alone forever?"

Then, something in Ryoma abruptly shifted, and he noted that this is was what it was like to truly annoy the shit out of somebody so headstrong. He felt a little proud, if not for how murderous he looked.

"If you're gonna keep beating around the bush instead of compromising with me, the ambulance is just a phone call away." Ryoma warned, pulling it up on his phone again for emphasis. Kokichi sighed in falsetto irritation even though his heart was beating so intensely.

”Okay, okay, I'll ask for something else." This time, he put on one of his scarier expressions, leaning closer to the convict for more emphasis. 

"Do me a favor and tell everyone to screw off so that I don’t have to spare another look at their miserable faces.” 

Blood trickled from his chapped lips to his shirt, trailing onto the floor.

”I don’t care about anyone except myself, so let's just leave this to me, okay?"

Ryoma went silent, staring blankly through him. He hoped that he couldn't hear how hard his heart was beating.

"Don't you have an organization to watch over? Regardless of the size, what happens in it, or whether they're evil or not, those people care about you, I'm sure. Don't they matter to you?

“Does _anything_ matter to you?"

Kokichi felt like he was suffocating under that extreme glare of his. Fighting the urge to bite his nails in his nervousness, he dug his teeth into his lower lip, opening old scabs.

"Didn't I already answer that, _Killer Tennis_-chan?" He giggled, his grin coming so forced that it hurt his cheeks.

And after a small moment of hesitation, Ryoma suddenly rushed forward so quickly that he could hardly see him, pulling a gasp of surprise from the genuinely petrified part of him. Then it became impossible to breathe- not because Kokichi had petals in his throat, but because Ryoma was jabbing the grip of a knife into his ribcage.

_Oh fuck._

"You're living by the skin of your teeth right now. What's the point, Ouma? 

"If you truly don't care about anything, I'm continuing my death sentence after I graduate. I can end it all quickly for you. Another dead person on my record won't matter so much, considering how many are on there. Why not end it all right now?"

Oh. 

"Do you want to die, Ouma?" 

Ryoma was going to kill him.

"It's a yes or no question. I'm grasping for straws here, so just humor me for a second, yeah?"

Kokichi was struggling to process what was going on, so at his lack of a response, Ryoma turned the knife around and pointed the sharp end to the exact location of his heart. With one hand on the grip, he dropped the phone in his hand and placed the other on top of it as if making the planned stab stronger.

Coincidentally, Kokichi saw his chance right when Ryoma closed in.

"Just say the word." He could smell chalk candy on his breath, the exact brand that somebody in DICE used. Kokichi wished that he didn't think that.

Then Kokichi breathed in for four seconds, held it, then let it out. Ryoma killed a bunch of people in cold blood. This wouldn't affect his conscience too badly, right?

Right.

_It's now or never._

Trying to ignore Ryoma's pained groan when he kneed him in the crotch, he snatched a jacket off of the floor and grabbed one of his backpacks out of his cramped closet, placing his phone, a charger, and the thermos of soup inside. Snatching his wallet off the table, he saw Ryoma begin to struggle to get up with the knife still situated in his hand, and he went into full flight mode, deciding to forget everything else and just _get out_. He didn't want to leave Conan, who sat confused on his desk, but he had no choice. A look of apology in his direction would have to suffice as he rushed to the front.

Grabbing his bike from the closet with a frantic fervor, he jumped on and sped as fast as humanly possible out the front door, down the stairs, then out of the complex, thanking some distant deity for placing him near the ground floor.

Kokichi was a little scared about what would happen if Ryoma managed to catch up with him. (Okay, he was terrified. There was an ex-serial killer/convict/student-athlete pursuing him, and biking this quickly really exhausted him.)

And even if that didn't happen, where could he go? DICE’s headquarters wouldn’t work- he couldn’t risk being seen by one of his subordinates. He couldn’t seek refuge at anyone’s house for obvious reasons. Anywhere visible by another person was unsafe because someone could call the police. His best bet was to evade Ryoma for a while and then hide somewhere until he felt better.

It wasn’t a good plan, but he didn’t have much control over his weary brain, so he decided to roll with the punches this time. He’d just escaped a near-death situation, so this _probably_ wouldn’t kill him.

Gripping the handlebars tighter, he looked forward to taking another nap as he pedaled through the busy Tokyo streets, completely dreading every second that he stayed awake.

✱✲✱

Kokichi wasn’t sure if he’d gone far enough, but seeing that Ryoma was on foot, a long ride away from his house using various secret paths he’d discovered over the years should’ve gotten Ryoma off of his tail. 

At the time, he was hiding in an empty Familymart in some rural area. There wasn’t much around except dense woods to the left of the convenience store and a train station, a small school, a pub, a neighborhood, and a continuous road that he came in on to the right. His bike also sat deserted in the front, but as he rushed to the back in hopes of avoiding the stare of the senile cashier, it was the last thing on his mind. Kokichi was freezing his _ass_ off.

With the pain in his throat, he didn’t eat much- not that he missed eating cup ramen every night or anything, but losing so much weight also meant that he got cold irrationally easy. If it were up to him and not his stupid body, he’d have kept going until he rode into the ocean. Ryoma would get eaten by piranhas or something before he found him in the fucking ocean.

Harshly rubbing his arm for more warmth, he threw the last empty caffeine packet into the trash and put a lid on his coffee, making sure to mix it around before taking a long sip. He'd already wolfed down the thermos of soup while he was on his bike (and also spilled most of it down his front, which nearly drove him into the back of somebody's car) but he didn't have enough money to buy real food, so this would have to sustain.

He easily noticed that this Hanahaki thing was taking a toll on him, though, since looking in the bathroom mirror after buying the coffee got him to realize that he probably looked pretty crazy going around like this.

When he opened his mouth, his teeth were stained red. His fingers were tinted red from the blood he kept wiping from his lips, and there was a red stain in the crease of the left arm of his jacket in which he coughed. He looked like he’d just fled from war.

With a heavy grimace, he took his jacket off and thoroughly wiped all of the blood with damp toilet paper, scrubbing the inside of his mouth with his index finger. He had a hard time trying not to smudge the stains on his sweater, so he decided to turn it inside out, thanking his past self for wearing a dark material thick enough that it hid the stain.

By the time he was done, he looked much cleaner and smelled significantly better. There were a few stains of blood smudging the black plaid of the pants he was wearing, but he covered them up by tying the jacket around his waist. Speaking of, he noticed that it was Gonta’s by how large it was, also by the messy writing listing his name on the tag. It smelled like pollen and soil, probably from when he’d go searching for bugs in the school’s flower garden. Kokichi smiled a little despite himself.

Shrugging on his backpack while subconsciously twirling a piece of hair with a finger, he walked out of the Familymart and threw his quickly drained coffee cup in the trash, cringing when a sudden gust of cold hit his face. With a dry cough and a sick sounding sniff, he hopped back onto his bike and ventured out, deciding to finally start looking for a warm place to camp out at until it'd be fine to go home.

Subconsciously Kokichi looked back up to the vibrant stars above, tracing each imaginary constellation. His legs moved fluidly against the pedals, each smooth glide floating along with every turn of the road. Astray pieces of his hair floated in front of his face, dull shades of violet a stark reminder that he hadn't cut his split ends in a while.

Humming a random tune, he recognized it as a song he'd heard at one of Kaede's concerts. He could only vaguely remember the name (_Daydream_, he guessed,) but it was Debussy, for sure. She knew every one of his songs by heart.

Speaking of Kaede, Kokichi didn't know when the people around him started to affect him so much, but somehow, being in the 79th class of Hope's Peak had warped his personality. He was so different before he went to Hope's Peak. Thinking of that made him recall of times when he'd randomly run away from his foster homes as a preteen and do whatever he wanted, all by himself. Not usually for any reason, since not _every_ home sucked, but it felt wrong growing too attached since he was only there temporarily anyway.

When he would run away, the places that he stayed in were always lively. Sometimes he'd stay with the drunk homeless people that told fun stories, other times with hippie tourists who lived in a minivan, occasionally the troubled teenagers who'd permanently run away from home. Among them, he met many people that were soon to be members of DICE. His organization was founded by him and a few friends from elementary, though it started to thrive as he met more people in his travels.

Of course, there came problems with that, but he didn't want to think about them.

Otherwise, junior-high-school had its fun moments, but he never had any permanent friends and any boring flings with random girls ended in less than a week. ("You freaking idiot!" One of them cried, soon running away from the scene with a teary face. He thought back to it with a grimace that he thought it was a good idea to jump out of the second-floor window and onto his skateboard just to give her a scare. All he did was break the poor girl's heart- and his ankle.) Kokichi was known as the kid that you had a blast with when he occasionally showed up to class but then became intolerable after a few hours of spending time with him. He didn't fit in anywhere besides with those who were in DICE.

That was another reason why he ran away so much.

Then, DICE had grown exponentially at the end of junior high. He was planning to skip high school and pursue his love for being the leader of DICE full time, but then someone unexpected showed up after he left the principal's office with his foster mom. A distinct memory of a burning tight grip on his wrist and a kind face staring at him from his front door was still fresh in his brain as if it had only happened the day before. 

That day, he had met the principal of Hope's Peak Highschool for the first time, and that day changed everything.

Since then, a lot had changed in Kokichi. He met Rantaro, who got him to break down a little bit of his facade to the rest of the 79th class, and he met Miu and Kiibo, who accompanied him whenever he needed to get out of the busy city. He met Mikan and Celeste, who were the coolest upperclassmen that he could ask for, and he met Gonta and Kaede, who showed him how nice the little things in life could be when he needed that the most. 

He could feel that something was changing with DICE, too, though.

Before yesterday happened, he tried to ignore it, but he couldn't anymore. Something weird was going on, and Kokichi was almost in an entirely different world. 

_Didn't he have people depending on him?_

And suddenly, that thought scared him so badly that he nearly forgot he was still on a bike and supposed to be keeping it steady, his limbs going numb as his breathing became shallow. 

"Oh, shit." His cry of desperation came out in a whisper, bike wavering to the side when he started to lose control. He didn't typically have scenes like this anymore, and that alone made him panic even more.

He almost saw it happen in the third person as he nearly ran into a telephone pole, having to force himself back into his body to swerve awkwardly out of the way and onto the concrete.

"Shit-!"

With a grunt, he twisted rigidly and landed on his hand so that he wouldn't hit his head, having to grit his teeth not to scream in pain as the rocky cement clawed against his skin. Lying there for a few extra seconds in an attempt to get his vision to refocus, he rolled over onto his back with a pained groan, still wheezing as he stared into the sky. Different parts of his body screamed in pain, and any parts of his exposed skin were rubbed raw. 

At least he didn't get a concussion, he thought with a laugh.

Huffing, he sat up too quickly and slightly swayed from the extreme whiplash, then examining his bloody hand. He decided to do himself a favor and not think of how disgusting it looked in any case that he passed out, but he definitely couldn't just leave it alone. He'd have to go back to the Familymart for medicine.

Wiping a few pained tears from the corners of his eyes, he was suddenly distracted by his wound when he heard a loud burst of laughter from across the street. Glancing up with a wince, he expected it to be at his expense, but the person laughing didn't even notice that he was there. She was laughing at the man next to her.

"What do you mean, you don't drink? You work at a bar, don't you?" The woman laughed, nonchalantly pulled the man’s suit jacket tighter over her shoulders with a low-lidded smile. He could tell that she was buzzed and trying desperately to flirt with the guy, but as gross as that was, something had particularly caught his interest. 

Or _someone_.

"Yeah... I don't like the taste very much." He said with his hands stuffed comfortably in his pockets, keeping a fair distance from her. His face was distracted by a variety of medical patches and band-aids, but his soft tone of voice was immediately recognizable.

The supreme leader couldn't help the snicker of mischief, having to cover his mouth to prevent his wide grin from spreading. Oh, boy. What a situation.

"Really? That's weird..." She muttered, then brushing it off with a shrug. With her heels held behind her back, she skipped barefoot to the side, slightly leaning to look at him. "I understand, abstinence is a good thing to practice. But I want to get to know you better, Seita-kun. Could we go out sometime? It doesn’t have to be over drinks.” 

Seita? A phony name, too?

"Ah... I'm afraid that I can't, Akari-san. My girlfriend doesn't like when I go out with other women, so..." He excused with a shrug, slightly bowing his head in apology. It reminded him of how Rantaro would act when he turned down pretty girls since he also conjured up an imaginary girlfriend in excuse. Kokichi wouldn't be surprised if he were mirroring him.

"_Girlfriend?_ Oh my gosh, I didn't know. I've never seen her at the bar!" Akari gasped, putting a hand to her mouth. The bar they were likely talking about was behind them, the man leaning against a wall below the overhanging sign advertising the name Pub Ibis. He laughed uncomfortably.

"Yeah, she's also trying to stay clean. I'm sorry for giving you the wrong idea." ... He wasn't sorry.

"It's okay," She giggled, passing his jacket back to him. "I have to go home, anyway. I'll see you later."

"Get home safe." He smiled, pulling a hand out of his pocket to wave goodbye. She nodded, apologized for the misunderstanding, then walked off to the train station, waving back with a cheerful smile despite just being turned down.

That was it for Akari's night, but Seita- formally known as Shuichi Saihara- was in for so much more.

Ignoring the fiery stinging of his hand as he pulled his bike up from the ground, Kokichi trailed his classmate as he walked into the bar, peering into the window after him. He was gathering his things, so he probably just got off of his shift.

Excited that he found something to keep his mind off of things for a bit, Kokichi stood impatiently in the front, holding his wounded hand tightly to ease the pain. As he waited, he started to wonder what Shuichi’s family thought about him getting into fights and working illegally under a fake name. Kokichi supposed that he was probably hiding it from them, but if so, why was he working at a bar out of all places? With his reputation, he could effortlessly get a higher paying job. He didn't even need a fake identity, right?

However, back when Kaede would talk about him nonstop, she had mentioned that he lived with his uncle, who was a famously known detective in Shibuya that worked on homicide cases. Kokichi could only assume that the purpose of having a job like this had something to do with the secrecy of its location, but he didn't understand _why_ he needed the secrecy and fake identity. His uncle would notice if he came home covered in wounds and smelling of alcohol anyway, right?

Maybe his uncle didn't care?

Kokichi decided to think more about it later when Shuichi walked back out of the front door while waving goodbye to everyone in the bar, a chorus of roars about Akari following him out. Ignoring them, he skipped down the steps in high spirits while stuffing his suit jacket into his bag, then walking off in the direction to the train station. 

With his shirt tucked into his pants, the supreme leader caught a glimpse of an old-looking pocket watch that he'd never seen before hanging off of his belt loop. If that wasn't already weird, his hat was also off, making him look much more different. Kokichi would have to inspect this.

Stepping back onto his bike, he followed along to see if he could catch his attention, but the detective was too focused on his phone. Huffing in irritation, he slowed down to his pace and started to follow next to him then leaned over with a hand cupped over his mouth, the other wounded hand screaming in protest as it scraped against the handle. 

"MILLENIALS AND THEIR PHONES, AM I RIGHT!?" 

Shuichi shouted in shock and jumped to the side, his eyes blown wide in confusion as he stared at the person before him. It gave Kokichi a boost of pride for surprising him so thoroughly, but then he noticed something.

With a closer look, Kokichi saw that a thin cowlick akin to Kaede's stood where his hat usually did, the normally straighter parts of his hair slightly messy and sticking outwards as if he'd woken up like that. He didn't look as greasy in just a plain white dress shirt, especially with the sleeves rolled up like that, where Kokichi could see his strangely toned (and bandaged) arms.

For some reason, it felt like the weather outside had suddenly turned to a temperature warranting that water could boil, even though it was night, nearing the end of October, and cold enough that Kokichi could see his warm puffs of breath.

"J-- um, haha, just kidding. I know that we're Generation Z, but the people in that bar seem to think otherwise, huh, Seita-chan? Haha." He laughed awkwardly, then gasping in surprise when he nearly fell off of his bike when he wasn't paying attention, his palms so sweaty that they slipped off of the handles. With a strangled grunt, he pulled his gaze to his bike and focused on getting it rebalanced, then turned back to him almost too eagerly.

Shuichi fell to the ground, shaking as if he'd just seen a ghost. (To be fair, Kokichi could pass as an apparition with how pale he was, but he was too cute to be dead.)

"But now that you have your ugly emo hat off, I must say that it's giving me severe brain damage that you hide under that hat at school. Seriously, you- _Woah!_" While ogling at his classmate, an attempt to stop his bike from moving instead caused his foot to slip onto the pedal with an incredibly strong force. He then zoomed down the incline of the road and into a conveniently placed obstacle on the road, causing him to trip up and tumble off of his bike with a loud shout. Landing hard on his side, he hit a bruise that he made from falling earlier, bringing him to groan in pain.

"_Ouch..._"

The detective still stared, mortified, as Kokichi sat back up with a groan, rubbing his shoulder. 

"See? What did I just tell you? Even the mention of you wearing that Hot Topic trash is going to give me a concussion. 

"Anyways, uh, you free tonight or what?" The hand on Kokichi's shoulder cradled the sore spot as he turned to him with a wide grin, an uncharacteristically open expression free of any lingering mask. He didn't even notice.

Shuichi was still frozen, and for a second Kokichi thought that he might've broken him or something, but he then shook it off and walked over. With a hand grasped tightly onto his bag's strap, he offered the other hand to help him up, very persistently avoiding his gaze. Kokichi noticed that he had lined calluses on the tips of his fingers that weren't bandaged.

"You shouldn't be throwing yourself around when you're sick, Ouma-kun," He mumbled, almost looking like he felt bad for chiding him. Kokichi's heart throbbed, but he didn't take his hand. He leaned onto his intact hand and jumped up.

"Nah, I'm not sick anymore. Akamatsu-chan's drugged- ahem, her _magic_ soup made me feel better." He reassured, brushing his pants off. That could easily be disproved if Ryoma told everyone about what had happened, but what Shuichi didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

"Ah... that's good, but what'd you do to your hand, Ouma-kun...?" Kokichi hadn't noticed that Shuichi picked his bike up for him until he saw that he was staring at the red bloodstain on the handle. Oops.

"Aww, c'mon, aren't you supposed to ask me how I found you here and junk? You're boring me..." He wasn't, but Kokichi just didn't want to talk about it.

"Ah... Sorry. I guess I should, but you're probably still wondering how I got hurt last night since Ibis doesn't have any stairs, right...?" Oh shit, Kokichi hadn't even thought of that. Shuichi pulled a medkit from his bag and passed him some gauze and a bottle of ibuprofen. "If you know about my job and fake identity now, keeping the truth behind that a secret wouldn't have any purpose... and you could probably see through my lie anyway. You're pretty adept at differentiating between truth and lies, aren't you?" He looked back to him curiously.

Feeling a little proud of the acknowledgment, Kokichi ignored the offer and grabbed the liquid disinfectant from the kit instead, pouring it straight onto the gash on his hand. Staring straight at him through the sting on his palm, he capped it up effortlessly when the hydrogen peroxide stopped bubbling and wrapped up his hand himself, finding comfort in the familiar motion. 

"You could say that I'm a little well known for it," Kokichi smiled, popping the cap off of the bottle of ibuprofen. With an eyebrow raised at how the bottle was only a quarter full, he swallowed two pills dry, entirely forgetting about the soda in his backpack. 

Putting everything back into the kit neatly, he looked up at Shuichi waiting for a response, meeting his golden eyes. Expression somehow unreadable, the detective looked away before he could gauge it (or stare) any further. Damn it.

"Rude." With a huff, Kokichi went to grab the bike from Shuichi, but he turned it away from him in refusal. 

"Oh, no... go easy on your hand for now, please." Now he wouldn't meet his eyes at all. "Using that much peroxide can damage your tissue." He mumbled, walking ahead of him with the bike. Kokichi skipped over to walk next to him, holding his stinging hand behind his back.

"Aww. Thank you, my beloved." He snickered at how Shuichi's ears turned pink.

"I don't understand what that means... Please stop saying stuff like that."

"Mm... No." Shuichi sighed.

"Okay. I'll tell you about yesterday, though, since you'd probably pester me until I did." Yeah, true.

"Um... To start, I fractured my nose and cracked one of my ribs yesterday because I got in a fight. You were right." He admitted, staring blankly ahead at the road. That explained the partially full pill bottle. He was surprised to see that he could walk with his back so straight, though. Shuichi seemed to be stronger than he initially thought, which pushed him to blurt something without thinking.

"Did you take it like a man or fight them back?" Kokichi asked with a childish smile, punching at the air in front of him with moves he'd seen from Street Fighter. Shuichi chuckled at that, but the grin on his face seemed slightly strained.

"Mm... I don't know how to answer that." His response was strangely curt, but Kokichi yet again decided not to press.

"And the place that you just saw me at, the bar... well, I've been working there for over 5 months now. You were also right about that other thing you said yesterday, cause I'm also juggling some other jobs with school still going on." Kokichi couldn't see his face, but he could hear the melancholy in his tone.

_'Money must be tight, huh?'_ Kokichi's heart slightly squeezed with guilt. He wondered if he slept much, and leaned over to look at his eyes again. That time he noticed concealer covering the area below his eyes. Shuichi didn't seem to notice what he was looking at.

"As of today, you're the only one who knows about my other alias for Ibis, Seita Yugi." 

Kokichi then realized something and stopped in his tracks, staring straight at Shuichi with a blank face as he also stopped to stay near him. The latter awkwardly toyed with his hair at the attention but kept talking.

"I- I mean, Akamatsu-san got pretty close to finding out about one of my jobs, and... Tsumiki-senpai fixes me up when I get hurt. She's the one who lets me skip gym class sometimes. You're the only one who knows about my fake identity, though." Shuichi had always said that his wounds were from detective training, and the truth behind it was crazy and all, but he couldn't help but wonder something.

"Seita Yugi isn't a real person, is he?" Kokichi didn't mean to ask it so seriously, but he was starting to grow concerned. Was Shuichi potentially dangerous?

"N- no!" Shuichi squeaked, his hands suddenly thrown up in a frenzied positon. The bike fell over unceremoniously. "I wouldn't do that to anyone! It's already enough of a burden to be hiding stuff like this from Kaito-kun..." He grumbled, staring to the side in embarrassment. Kokichi felt relieved at that, yet there was still something bothering him.

"That doesn't mean you aren't dangerous, though, does it?" Shuichi shifted uncomfortably. 

"Am I in danger by knowing about this?"

Shuichi froze at his intense tone, though he turned to him with confidence, fists clenched at his sides.

"If you stop following me and don't involve yourself, then everything should be fine." This time, he looked straight at him instead of narrowly avoiding eye contact. He looked like he knew that for sure, as if from experience- Kokichi thought back to what he said about Kaede almost finding out- but he decided to clarify something first.

"I didn't follow you on purpose. Last night and today were both coincidences." He couldn't guarantee that Shuichi would believe him, and it felt weird telling the solid truth, but his health was already in jeopardy, so he couldn't have dangerous people tracking his movements. He didn't know if he could fight back.

"... You just _happened_ to stumble across me? Two times in a row?" Shuichi asked in surprise, slightly quirking an eyebrow in disbelief. Kokichi grew a little annoyed that he had to elaborate further, but he did nevertheless.

"Yesterday, I was running an errand, then I saw you on the train. Today, I was going on a bike ride and happened to see you in front of that greasy bar while I was passing by. No offense, but I wouldn't follow some random kid that I hardly talk to around town." Kokichi shrugged, picking at his nails. 

"That's too vague, Ouma-kun. Stuff like that doesn't just happen," Shuichi mumbled, resting his hand on his mouth in thought. The supreme leader grew irritated again.

"Saying that staying away from you is what will keep me safe is vague too. Are your other jobs possibly worse than this one, _Seita_-chan?" Shuichi froze and didn't respond.

With Shuichi staring at the ground and refusing to answer, the tension in the air was thick like fog, and suddenly Kokichi remembered what happened with Ryoma. The notion that Shuichi could've also been dangerous- if not more so- made him freeze for a second. He should get out, huh?

With an exaggerated eye-roll, he pulled his bike from the ground and hopped onto it, tying the jacket tighter around his waist as Shuichi balked.

"W-wait-"

"You're not answering, so I'm leaving. Thanks for boring me, I guess." If he ran away once, he could do it again, so he quickly pedaled away, working his legs as fast as possible. This was a pretty important matter, but he stopped caring for a few seconds, just wanting to get out and take a nap. And as he gained speed, he was glad that he'd gotten a pretty great start, but then he felt something flutter in his throat. _Shit._

_You've got to be joking._

Abruptly stopping short, he slammed a foot onto the ground to keep balance and leaned over to stop himself from coughing, staying dead still. Clasping a hand stiffly over his mouth, he kept his throat restricted, hoping dearly that yet another person wouldn't bear witness to his disease. Especially Shuichi, another person he hardly knew that was possibly even more dangerous than Ryoma.

As the urge to fight off a cough became harder to fight, images of Ryoma looming over him as he coughed up blood floated in his mind, the reeking smell and the thick pool of red below him replaying relentlessly in his mind. 

Despite the absence of any knife against his ribcage, his breathing grew shallow again, and the panic attack he'd hardly pushed away earlier came back full force. _Shit!_

"Ouma-kun! I'm glad you stopped--" A breathless voice came from somewhere distantly, but he couldn't think about it. He could feel each separate part of his body growing numb as he stood still. Only then he was even vaguely aware of how cold he'd gotten, and the hand against his mouth was the only sensation still keeping him present. 

"Ouma-kun?"

The smell of blood remained, though, as it always did. He'd started to resent that smell more than anything in the world.

"Ouma-kun, are you alright?" There was something making noise nearby, but he found it hard to think about it. Then something unfamiliar and warm- slightly callused?- grabbed his bandaged hand. It was hesitant, as if unsure if it should stay there or not, but it held on gently, unlike Ryoma, who had violently shoved the grip of that knife against his chest.

"You're... You're freezing."

Kokichi moved his head toward the noise, trying to blink away the moist dryness in his eyes. He hadn't noticed that Shuichi grabbed ahold of his hand- the bike, more generally- because it almost fell over. Fun fact, he couldn't feel much of his legs.

"Ah..." Turning to look at him must've made Shuichi realize something, cause the hand on his gripped more firmly. Unsure of what to do, the detective stared wide-eyed at him, lips pursed. Kokichi stared back, quite literally lost in his eyes or whatever.

"C- can I do anything for you?" 

Kokichi's head wavered, eyes heavy as he debated over passing out on him or something. He was tired, kind of delusional, and not really in the mood to joke anymore, so he decided to blame this next move on that as he moved closer to this stranger.

"Huh- Ouma-kun? Wait, are you oka-" He wanted to groan as Shuichi moved to look at him.

"_Shh._ Just... give me a sec."

"Ah. Okay."

With his head on his shoulder, his consciousness quickly started to fade, and he concluded that he'd forget about how much he was crying when this was over for the sake of his dignity. It'd be better for him to overlook that Shuichi was coaxing him through it, anyway, since the hand rubbing his arm made him feel so unnaturally warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone!! welcome back to "kokichi has eighteen breakdowns and then sleeps for a day straight" part two. thank you for coming back after my long hiatus, and if you're new, thanks for stopping by!  
to anyone who's curious about why i was gone for so long, in short, freshman year kicked my ass and i've been pretty stressed out. i didn't want to write an angsty chapter like this while crying about missing the igor concert so i only worked on this when i was either dying to get my hands on a keyboard or in a really good mood. i'm sorry that it took so long, but imo a chapter full of me venting through a 5'1 little bastard would be like watching taxi driver for the second time and i don't want to do that to any of you  
(im jk. taxi driver is a good movie don't come for me)  
i also took some more time to reflect on where this was going and how i could really squeeze out the best possible thing from this, so now i have more of a plan! i'm pretty excited (⌒‿⌒)*  
again, i can't guarantee when the next chapter will come out since school is still a pain in the ass, but i don't think it'll take as long since i've been more stable so let's hope i can stay more committed to this lmao  
again, all of your sweet comments and kudos have helped me stay grounded too, so thank you, everyone! if anyone wants to say hi, feel free to comment ^^


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